Special Session 12

Energy Systems represent a key enabling technology for space exploration and science research. Power sources and energy storage devices are strategic for the good results of a space mission. The improvement of the efficiency in Energy Systems can imply the reduction of the mass to be launched in space, with positive impact on the overall costs and risks of the mission. With the Artemis program for Lunar exploration and colonization, new challenge are established also in this frame: improvement of the existing technologies or ideas of innovative ones can be the drive to ease one of the criticalities of these programs.

This special session is therefore aimed at disseminating the state-of-the-art of these technologies, with a focus on the following topics:

• Power sources;
• Solar Power Plants;
• Storage devices;
• Technologies for electrical power generation;
• Reduction of energy consumption.

Great relevance has the potentiality of this branch of knowledge in terms of technology transfer from space to terrestrial applications, with particular interest for the renewable energies.

Cesare Molfese, is staff researcher at the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF). He obtained the master degree in electronic engineering at the Federico II University in Naples, Italy, and he had been working for fifteen years with industrial companies, in the field of technology for scientific research. He has been working with INAF for almost two decades, participating in the design and development of several space instruments and ground based telescopes. He covered the positions of responsible of the electronic control hardware of the VST Telescope, a joint project of INAF and European Southern Observatory (ESO), based in Germany and Chile, and of technical and project manager of two scientific instruments, aimed at Mars exploration in the frame of ExoMars Program, a joint mission of the European (ESA) and Russian (ROSCOSMOS) Space Agencies. Current research activity is focused on the study and development of Smart Solar Panels for space applications.